by George Ayer

The basis for all human dignity is that we are created by God in His image and likeness.

I begin this reflection with a quote from Pope Benedict XVI as you saw on the slider “We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution; each of us is the result of a thought of God, each of us willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary.”

Let us begin by asking ourselves this question:  “If God has created us, why do people in our societies with disabilities feel so marginalized and devalued?”  The word “disability” also is interesting as it seems to indicate the lack of an ability.  A new word has come out recently indicating how people are disrespected and not valued for who they are in both their gifts and abilities as well as in any challenges or lack of abilities: it’s called “ableism,” a word I learned recently as an individual with a disability myself (see my “Founder’s Testimony”) and yet I never heard the word until I was 36 years old and I was in a disability program. For comparison, try to imagine living in our modern society and not hearing the word “racism” until you were 36—I had obviously heard the word racism from when I was very young!

The reality is that our Catholic faith teaches us that every human being is created in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1) and that all human beings spring from God’s supernatural  creation of Adam from the earth and of Eve from his side and from their marriage union (Genesis 1-4, Pope Leo XIII, Providentissimus Deus).  Human beings are therefore a direct supernatural creation, not freak accidents of some evolutionary cosmic process. In the 19th century however a bigger impetus for the growing rationalism to explain our origins apart from creation as understood in the Bible and in the Catholic Church began to develop with the theory of evolution proposed by a man named Charles Darwin.  Darwin believed that not only could all plants and animals be explained naturally without the need for a supernatural Designer, but in his work The Descent of Man he argued that human beings were also descended from beasts and ultimately from the most primitive forms of life.  He went so far as to argue a racist concept that some races were closer to man’s bestial heritage than others, and the German anatomist Ernst Haeckel used Darwin’s ideas to formulate a “eugenics'' program to eliminate human beings with disabilities from the human race.  

These programs have wreaked havoc even till this day, with Darwinism providing a pseudo-scientific rationale for putting those of us with disabilities into institutions, or for having us sterilized, or for simply marginalizing us and valuing us solely in terms of how we fit into  the post-modern Darwinian “production” framework, with an overall sense that we are less productive members of society because of our disabilities. Within this framework, is it any wonder that “ableism” is just starting to be addressed, when suddenly the violation of every other human right (whether legitimate or illegitimate depending on the context) is taken far less seriously in most social settings than an accusation of racism?

If I walked into a store and called the store manager a “racist,” everyone would go on the defensive, but if I called him an “ableist,” most would probably shrug their shoulders and would not even understand what the term “ableism” means.  St. Therese with her Little Way and with her trust in Jesus’ Merciful Love in brokenness actually gives the perfect response to ableism and can especially help little souls and the disabled embrace Christ and His Gospel.  Her Little Way can even help “the powerful and mighty” come down from their thrones, humble themselves and turn away from “ableism,” renouncing the idea that our gifts and talents apart from the grace of Christ mean anything to God.  

St. Therese realized that she had to love her littleness and spiritual poverty where she could see her need for God, for she knew that anything good was a gift from Him–hence the name of my ministry, St. Therese’s Vision for Disability Giftedness.  Another important point about St. Therese of Lisieux related to disabilities and to evolution and ableism is that she lived in a time of rationalism, but never accepted the fallacies of her era but rather believed in the simplicity of the Word of God like a child. God spoke and all of creation came into being very good—there was no need for any ableist evolution.  This same God (i.e., the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity) acted with Mercy when He became incarnate, always bringing good to humble souls, just as He did at the beginning of creation, not only making everything out of nothing but supernaturally creating us from the humble earth in His image to give us a royal dignity, displaying His love and Mercy.  

We see that St. Faustina declares similar concepts indicating that everything in creation displays the love and mercy of the Lord (probably as Jesus Himself revealed this to her).  In both of these saints we see that we must come to Our Lord like children, or we cannot enter the Kingdom of God—because it is only when we believe God’s Word in its simple power that He can act.  As the gospel says, “Jesus could not do many miracles because of their lack of faith.” And during these Marxist times miracles have all but disappeared; for, as Our Lord says, “When the Son of Man comes, will He find any faith on this earth?”  Yet the little souls, including those with brokenness, disabilities and challenges, are crying out to Him across the face of the earth, trusting in His infinite mercy.

So what is happening today? Even those outside of the Faith, even those in the New Age movement and other religions, are beginning to question the post-Darwinian mechanistic view that we are just a bundle of atoms and chemicals.  At the mid-point of the twentieth century,  Pope Pius XII asked Catholic scholars to examine the evidence for and against the hypothesis of human evolution in his encyclical Humani Generis, but those who held the traditional position handed down from the Apostles by all of the Fathers, Doctors, Popes and Council Fathers in their authoritative teaching  were made fun of as naive, biblical literalists.  Catholics are more and more acting like Protestants, not having much coherence, pegged as liberal, modernist, or various types of “conservative,” while those who hold fast to the traditional Catholic Faith are often dismissed as naive traditionalists or “rad trads.”  This should not be!  For a simple faith in the Word of God means that, like St.Therese, we have access to God’s goodness, mercy and power in our lives, no matter how useless, disabled or overwhelmed by pain we may feel. Now as always, the Lord meets us in our brokenness—just as He met the paralytic, the leper or the sinful woman caught in adultery.

Today, sadly, with Covid-19 lockdowns, as of 2020 and 2021 people with disabilities are even more marginalized.  Most of them have been forced for many months to withdraw from active participation in society, as Marxism and collectivism begin to suppress our democratic freedoms.  Since naturalism and modernism are in vogue, everyone can go to a Walmart or to an abortion clinic, but Churches are deemed “non-essential” and dangerous covid places, rather than what they truly are—places where the disabled or emotionally wounded can hear of their special creation by God and of His plan for their lives.  At St. Therese’s Vision for Disability Giftedness we would like to remedy this situation with a simple faith in God in the midst of our brokenness and in His Word that goes back to our creation.  That simple supernatural Faith continually ponders the wonderful works of God, from His Eucharistic Miracles to the Feeding of the 5000 with five loaves and two fishes.  In the coming Era of Peace promised by Our Lady of Fatima, the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the social reign of the Sacred Heart of Jesus throughout the world, people with disabilities will once again have a home in the Church and will no longer be subject to eugenic Marxist globalism!  

Meanwhile, discrimination against those who choose not to take or administer an experimental MRNA gene therapy vaccine continues to escalate—even though the vaccine advocates admit that the vaccine does not protect against infection but only reduces the severity of the symptoms in some cases.  As the number of victims of the vaccine through death or disability skyrockets, those who want to force the vaccine on others censor information about a host of inexpensive, tried and tested treatments that have successfully prevented and treated the disease.  And in this campaign of coercion and censorship, the disabled, the homeless and the mentally ill are many times victimized because they do not have the resources to resist the campaign of coercion and to make a free and informed decision about their own medical care.  

Until recently, even secular democratic governments have at least paid lip service to the ideal of “freedom of conscience” and “freedom of religion.”  These freedoms, enshrined in the universal declaration of human rights, provide a basis for ensuring that people with disabilities are respected for their inherent dignity rather than when it feels socially convenient based on public outcry from minority segments of the population. At St. Therese’s Vision for Disability Giftedness, we will fight for the right of all citizens to be heard and to have access to the public square, and we will fight against a vaccine apartheid reminiscent of the Jim Crow era.  At St. Therese’s Vision for Disability Giftedness we affirm the fundamental truth that our disabilities, mental illness, or any brokenness we experience do not diminish our dignity as persons created in the image and likeness of God.   

We are all equal in His sight.  We come from Adam and Eve, and all of us are redeemed by the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ through His Incarnation, Death and Resurrection.  Through Him all human beings are invited to become adopted children of God through Holy Baptism, sharing in His divine life, receiving the gifts of supernatural faith, hope and charity, empowered by the Holy Spirit to be the members of Our Lord’s Mystical Body in a broken world.  With the Infant Jesus, with Our Blessed Mother Mary and with St. Joseph at St. Therese’s Vision for Disability Giftedness we will fight for a restoration of the moral order of the family—and like St. Francis of Assisi we will work for the rebuilding of our Holy Mother the Church to the greater glory of God the Father our Creator who made all things in His Co-Equal Son by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen!

(For a scientific refutation of the molecules to man evolution hypothesis and for a more extensive theological refutation of the same hypothesis in its “theistic” form, go here: www.kolbecenter.org)